The present invention relates to protective garments and particularly to protection against potential carcinogenic effects of electromagnetic radiation.
This year breast cancer will be diagnosed in approximately 180,000 women, and about 40,000 will die of the disease. Breast cancer is the second most common type of cancer in women, and is the leading cause of death for women of age 35-55 years.
Over the last fifty years the increase of breast cancer has risen steadly by 2 percent annually in most industralized nations. In America alone from 1973 to 1988, the rate rose 26 percent. It is now documented that American women have a one-in-eight chance of developing breast cancer sometime during their lives.
One factor identified as a potential causative agent is electromagnetic field radiation. Our bodies are exposed to a constant bombardment from electromagnetic radiation of various frequencies and intensities. Many studies have expressed the concern that the increased incidence of breast cancer may be related to the tremendous increase in ambient electromagnetic radiation to which the human body, specifically the breast, is exposed. This electromagnetic radiation is generated by microwave ovens, radio frequencies, computers, fax machines, copiers, printers, mobile cellular phones, overhead utility lines, and television to name just a few.
The matter of an association between exposure to power frequency magnetic fields and breast cancer has been the subject of epidemiological studies. That the body absorbs electromagnetic radiation has been proven without question, creating a problem as to what are safe exposure levels. The human body has an electromagnetic permeability almost identical to air and therefore electromagnetic radiation is readily absorbed.
Attempts have been made to establish guidelines and safe exposure standards as to how much radiation the body can safely absorb. Herman Scwan, a biophysicist at the University of Pennsylvania's Moore School of Engineering, stated that the net effect of absorbed radiation is twenty times greater than the body can dissipate. Human tissue most effectively absorbs radiation around 87 mHz in the FM radio band and reaches a maximum absorption at between 87 and 300 mHz. This range encompasses frequencies spanning FM radio and very high frequency (VHF) broadcasting (Levitt). A television set functions through the use of electron guns aimed from inside the set toward the screen or directly at the viewer, generating a high electromagnetic field of radiation. Computers are multi-frequency devices that generate an electromagnetic field from a cathode ray tube.
All of these are artificially created frequencies. None of these existed in the natural world before the twentieth century (Levitt). The high frequencies used for radio, television, radar, and cellular telephone transmission are sometimes on the order of a billion times more powerful than what exists in nature (Levitt).
No one understands the mechanism for the uncontrolled growth of cancer cells, however, in glandular tissue like the breast, electromagnetic radiation may be a co-factor in promoting cancer or a co-producer of cancer in combination with other carcinogens. Many researchers consider electromagnetic radiation to be a cancer promoter at the very least, if not an outright initiator (Levitt).
Mevissen et al reported that electromagnetic radiation exposure promotes the growth and progression of mammary tumors in rats. The data thus add to the accumulating evidence that electromagnetic field radiation exerts possible cancer coproducing effects. (Carcinogenesis, January 1995).
Stevens et al in Environmental Health Perspectives (March, 1996) reported that the effect of electrical power on breast cancer would have profound implications and the possibility deserves continued investigation.
Li et al published such an appraisal in Occupational Environmental Medicine (Aug. 1996) and concluded that more studies are needed. The authors also suggest that the risk of female breast cancer should be the object of additional investigations and that future studies should attempt to include information on exposure to magnetic fields from workplaces as well to estimate the effects of overall exposure to magnetic fields.
Medical research thus has identified a potential breast cancer causing environmental hazard and stresses the need for additional qualified research to ascertain whether electromagnetic radiation causes or acts as a coproducer of breast cancer. Until such research is accomplished and these issues are resolved, it is essential that this potential hazard of electromagnetic field radiation and its relationship to the cause of breast cancer be dealt with.
The present invention deals with this potential electromagnetic field hazard particularly the residential and workplace hazards involving electromagnetic field radiation emanating from commonly used electrical appliances including computer monitors to name just a few possible causes of breast cancer.